On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the surrealist movement, let’s re-examine this enigmatic and emblematic masterpiece by the Belgian painter. It’s both day and night: strange…
Master of enigmas, René Magritte was built on mystery. The year he was 14, he lost his mother to suicide by drowning. He will never talk about it, barely to his faithful wife Georgette. Young painter, he is sensitive to the cubist and futurist avant-gardebefore discovering Giorgio De Chirico in 1924, the year in which the Manifesto of surrealisman aesthetic revolution that explores the unconscious. Called by the group in 1926, Magritte maintained tense relations with its leader André Breton, until the inevitable breakup in 1947. Because the artist handled surrealism in his own way. See this house, this street lamp, everything seems normal… except that day and night act as a simultaneous presence ! The painter corrupts the relationships between objects. At his house, an image of a pipe proclaims “this is not a pipe” (The Betrayal of Images1929) and at night, the sky is azure! For what ? Mystery, again… Pure Magritte.
A remarkable Magritte painting, why?
This 1954 painting titled The Empire of Lights is one of the jewels of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (Brussels). There are 17 oil versions and ten gouache versions of this same theme.mainly made between 1953 and 1954, which can be admired at the MoMA or the Guggenheim in New York (United States). “What is depicted in the table The Empire of LightsRené Magritte tried to explain in 1956, these are the things I had the idea for, that is to say, exactly, a nocturnal landscape and a sky as we see it in broad daylight. The landscape evokes the night and the sky evokes the day. This evocation of night and day seems to me to have the power to surprise and delight us. I call this power ‘poetry’.”
Magritte creates “mental images”
In Brussels, where he settled permanently with his wife in the 1930s, René Magritte never owned a studio proper. He always painted, between two walks with his dog (a Pomeranian), in the kitchen of their bourgeois house, in the dining room or in a boudoir adjoining their bedroom. The artist cultivates a neutral, precise and anonymous stylea legacy of his advertising past, to create what he calls “mental images”.
An inspirational painting
The poster for the famous American horror film The Exorcist (1973) gives a strong nod to the masterpiece. The director, William Friedkin, declared: “I knew, when I saw this painting, that I had to recreate it, for the scene where the priest arrives near the MacNeil house […]the atmosphere that emanated from it. So I chose a house facing a street lit by the same type of street lamp, and had the scene lit in a similar way.”
The detail not to be missed
It can be recognized by its windows framed with green shutters. To paint The Empire of Lightsthe artist was inspired by a house in his neighborhood. It was located near Josaphat Park, in Schaerbeek, a commune in Brussels, not far from rue des Mimosas where the painter lived from 1954 until his death in 1967.
A Center Pompidou exhibition
Until January 13, 2025, the Center Pompidou, in Paris, celebrates with the exhibition Surrealism the anniversary of the movement, born a hundred years ago with the publication of Manifesto of surrealism by André Breton.
The key dates of René Magritte
1898 Born in Lessines, Belgium.
1916 Is a student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. Began his career as a wallpaper designer.
1922 Works as a graphic designer for the Norine fashion house. Marries Georgette Berger.
1927 First personal exhibition at the Le Centaure gallery, in Brussels. Settled in Perreux-sur-Marne, France.
-1929 Returns to Brussels, pushed by the financial crisis, and resumes his activities in an advertising agency.
1936 International recognition.
1947 Public condemnation of his ideas by André Breton, who “excommunicates” the painter.
1965 Stays in the United States for his retrospective organized at MoMA (New York).
1967 Died on August 15 from pancreatic cancer.
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